Coming events

Antonia Juhasz presents "The Tyranny of Oil"
Wednesday, November 19, 8pm - FREE ADMISSION
McConomy Auditorium, Carnegie Mellon University Center
Co-sponsored by Carnegie Mellon Activities Board, Codepink Pittsburgh, WILPF Pittsburgh and others

The hardest-hitting exposé of the oil industry in decades answers today’s most pressing energy questions: Why are oil and gasoline prices rising so quickly? Where will prices go in the future? Who’s really controlling those prices? How much oil is left? How far will Big Oil go to get it? And at what cost to the economy, environment, human rights, worker safety, public health, democracy, and America’s place in the world?

Juhasz investigates the true state of the U.S. oil industry, uncovering its virtually unparalleled global power, its influence over our elected officials, its lack of regulatory oversight, the truth behind $150-a-barrel oil, $4.50-a-gallon gasoline, and the highest profits in corporate history. Exposing an industry that thrives on secrecy, Juhasz shows how Big Oil manages to hide its business dealings from policy makers, legislators, and most of all, consumers. She reveals exactly how Big Oil gets what it wants—through money, influence, and lies.

A “timely, blistering critique... white-hot... Explosive fuel for the raging debate on oil prices.” - Kirkus Reviews

[ About the book | Antonia on Democracy Now! | Download flyer or ¼ p leaflet | Facebook Event ]

Previous Events (reports)

War Profiteering from Baghdad to Pittsburgh: Video & Discussion
Sunday, March 30, 1:30pm
Thomas Merton Center, 5125 Penn Ave.

Come learn how corporations that operate in the greater Pittsburgh area are profiting from the Iraq war, militarizing our economy, and making our world less safe and secure. These corporations include Carnegie Mellon and its Software Engineering Institute (the starting point for Saturday's rally), as well as CACI, Bechtel, RAND, Alcoa, among others.

We'll show excerpts from Iraq Vet's Against the War's "Winter Soldier" testimonies about corporate pillaging and military contracting in Iraq, jaw-dropping Army infomercials, and polished presentations as part of a larger discussion of how to address the problem of a "war economy" that pushes our nation towards war. War Made Easy Video Screening and Discussion
Tuesday, February 5th, 7pm
Friends Meeting House, 4836 Ellsworth Ave, Oakland

Join Demilitarize Pittsburgh for a screening and discussion of War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. Narrated by Sean Penn, and featuring Norman Solomon, this gripping new 72 minute documentary from the Media Education Foundation is chock-filled with disquieting archival footage and sharp critical analysis that illustrate how politicians and the corporate media conspire to "make going to war easy." On the heels of the January 22nd visit by Scott Ritter, a "Town Meeting on U.S. Foreign Policy: What Mainstream Media Don't Tell Us About Iran/Iraq," as well as the recent media brouhaha, "Iran Attacks US Destroyers!", the timely screening is a good opportunity to discuss the mechanisms that Democrats and Republicans alike might use to lead us to war with Iran. (Admission is free, but we'll pass the hat to help cover the costs of the renting the space.)

[ Learn more about the Video | Download Flyer (1 page) | Download Leaflet (1/2 page) "Army of None" Book Tour
Tuesday, October 9th, 7pm
Thomas Merton Center, 5125 Penn Ave.

Army of None: Strategies to Counter Military Recruitment, End War, and Build a Better World exposes the real story behind the military-recruitment complex, and offers guides, tools, and resources for education and action, and people power strategies to win. Pittsburgh Organizing Group and Demilitarize Pittsburgh hosted authors for a presentation and discussion about their book. Army veteran AIMEE ALLISON has led school and community counter-recruitment activities over the last decade. She is a contributor to 10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military and co-founder of the Service Women's Action Network. She was recruited out of high school and became a Conscientious Objector to the Gulf War. She actively supports veterans that are healing from their war experiences. Anti-war, global justice and arts organizer DAVID SOLNIT was a main organizer in the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999 and in San Francisco the day after Iraq was invaded in 2003. A co-founder of Courage to Resist, he is the editor of Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World.

[ Learn more about the Book | Video ]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki Commemorations
August 6-9, 2007
The second week of August the Demilitarize Pittsburgh project along with the Network for Spiritual Progressives and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) sponsored a series of five events centered around the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (A sixth event, Freeport Peace Link’s Annual Lantern Float for Peace, was rained out.) The events were meant not only to mourn for the loss of the over 200,000 Japanese civilians killed in those two days but also to expose the dangers of U.S. nuclear hypocrisy. Each one brought to the foreground the role that U.S. corporations have in perpetuating and profiting from a worldwide nuclear crisis and the wars in the Middle East.

[ Read more | Photos | Audio | Post-Gazette coverage | Democracy Now! ]

Beyond the Boardroom: A Workshop on Corporate Research
Monday, June 4, 7pm
Today 51 of world's largest 100 economies are multinational corporations. These corporations are playing an increasing role in our everyday lives. They sell us the water we drink and the food we eat; they operate many of the hospitals we go to when we're sick and and the schools our children attend; prisons, police and the military are not even insulated from this increasing trend toward privatization and corporatization. Despite their rapid rise in influence and power, information on these mammoth institutions is kept strikingly out of the popular dialogue. Who runs them? How are they connected? And perhaps most importantly: how can all of us have a say in how these corporations operate?

[ Download Presentation | Download Research Manual ]

Iraq for Sale: Screening and Discussion with Iraq Vets
Tuesday, June 12

About 40 turned out to hear Paul Abernathy (Mid-Atlantic Regional Coordinator for Iraq Veterans Against the War) and watch "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers." "Iraq for Sale" exposes the hidden truth of rampant profiteering in Iraq through the stories of soldiers, whistleblowers, survivors, and families of loved ones lost to corporate greed. Iraq for Sale uncovers the connections between private security companies making a killing in Iraq and the decision makers who allow them to do so. Directed by Robert Greenwald (Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed, and Uncovered). Co-sponsored by the Pittsburgh Vets Tour.

Three Rivers War-Profiteers Ride (part of Bikefest! 2007)
Wednesday, July 4

Part of Bikefest! 2007. About 40 people joined Demilitarize Pittsburgh volunteers on Independence Day for an unhealthy tour of some of wealthy corporations that make up some of Pittsburgh's leading war profiteers. Stops included Carnegie Mellon University, SEI, University of Pittsburgh, the Oakland Armed Forces Recruiting Center, NREC, Alcoa, US Steel, and more.

[ Download CMU factsheet | View list of stops ]

Current Campaign: Bechtel in Monroeville

Demilitarize Pittsburgh has launched a campaign to support Monroeville residents' struggle against Bechtel, which is opening up a new facility for one of its divisions in Tech One Park in Monroeville. The division of Bechtel, Bechtel Plant Machinery Inc. (BPMI), is under DoD contract for the Navy's Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program (NNPP) to research, develop, produce and maintain products for the Navy's fleet of nuclear-powered ships and submarines. As construction gets underway, local residents are concerned about the safety of their children, noise pollution, and other environmental effects of Bechtel moving into their neighborhood. The first batch of employees are expected to start work in Monroeville in August 2007. Read more: Why Bechtel?

Who We Are

Demilitatize Pittsburgh: War-profiteering Education and Action Network is a project of the Thomas Merton Center that aims to research, expose and confront the powerful corporate interests behind the war machine. Working with individuals and organizations in Pittsburgh and around the country, we seek to wean ourselves from a militarized economy that values profits over people, democracy and the planet. We believe that the peaceful resolution of international conflicts and global social and environmental justice depend the abolition of the military-industrial complex of the United States.

The project grew out of last year's organizing effort around Bechtel.

What We Do

• Research the contracts and practices of corporations and other profiteers that operate in Western PA.
• Produce educational materials, including "agit-prop." Maintain a website.
  
• Organize forums, screenings, presentations, protests, as well as creative resistance actions or other forms of direct action.
• Coordinate direct community education and outreach, such as leafleting, tabling, and door-to-door canvassing.
• Support research and other activities of like-minded groups, both locally and nationally.

Research and Education Focus Areas

• Who profits from and who pays for war.
• The composition of the "military-industrial-academic complex" and how impacts our communities and our environment.
• How to link the issues of war and war profiteering to social and environmental injustices and related movements.
• How we can organize resistance to war profiteers in our communities and workplaces.

Local Profiteers

Carnegie Mellon

Located in Oakland, Lawrenceville and elsewhere. Lots of contracts with numerous Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security agencies and subcontracts with many defense contractors. Work areas include robotics, software engineering, psychology, operations research, data mining, and more.

University of Pittsburgh

Located in Oakalnd. Major player in "biosecurity" field  and increasingly more involved in computer science-related research for the DoD and DoH.

Bechtel Corporation

Includes Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory (West Mifflin) and Bechtel Plant Machinery Inc. (Penn Hills and soon Monroeville). Probably the #1 profiteer in the nuclear weapons/industrial complex. Until it pulled out of Iraq, was one of the top war profiteers there.

Rand Corporation

Oakland. A DoD funded think-tank that over the years has helped lead the U.S. into war, from Vietnam to Iraq.

ChemImage

(Point Breeze).

Alcoa

(North Side, global HQ). A world-leader in the design, engineering, production and technical and parts support of military and special purpose vehicles.

US Steel

(Downtown, global HQ). Once supplied lots of steel for the military machine - not sure if they still do.

Defense Contract Management Agency

(Downtown). Responsible for contract management and oversight for the region's DoD contracts.

Bearing Point

Downtown. Received USAID funds to re-engineer Iraq and Afghanistan economies.

Concurrent Technologies Corporation

Downtown. Software engineering firm with defense contracts.

PPG Industries

Downtown, global HQ. Supplies lots of materials to aircraft and seacraft industries for the military.

KDKA/CBS Corporation (Downtown).

CBS corporation is listed among the top 100 defense contractors.

Parsons

(Downtown) Engineering firm that received $11 billion for Iraq reconstruction contracts. 

Maya Viz/General Dynamics

(South Side). Made "Troops of the Future" software for the Army and was subsequently bought out by General Dynamics. 

CACI

(Mt. Lebanon). Provides "intelligence" services to the CIA and the DoD and was involved at Abu Ghraib. Nicknamed, "Torture, Inc.".

Shaw Group

(Monroeville). Engineering company with defense contracts.

Westinghouse Electric Company

(Monroeville). Nuclear power. Once a leading defense contractor.

Brashear LP

(Fox Chapel). Develops software guidance systems for space weapons.

Applied Perception, Inc.

(Cranberry Township). Military robotics.

Optical Systems Technology Inc. (Freeport).

Supplies Marines with night-vision scopes.

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Thomas Merton Center - Demilitarize Pittsburgh
5125 Penn Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15224

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